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“And one morning as I was sitting by the fire, a great cloud came over me and a temptation beset me; and I sate still. And it was said, All things come by Nature. And the elements and stars came over me; so that I was in a manner quite clouded with it…. And as I sate still under it, and let it alone, a living hope arose in me, and a true voice arose in me which said, There is a living God who made all things. And immediately the cloud and the temptation vanished away, and life rose over it all, and my heart was glad and I praised the living God” (p. 13).

If George Fox could speak, as he proves in this and some other passages he could write, his astounding influence on the contemporaries of Milton and of Cromwell is no mystery. But this modern reproduction of the ancient prophet, with his “Thus saith the Lord,” “This is the work of the Lord,” steeped in supernaturalism and glorying in blind faith, is the mental antipodes of the philosopher, founded in naturalism and a fanatic for evidence, to whom these affirmations inevitably suggest the previous question: “How do you know that the Lord saith it?” “How do you know that the Lord doeth it?” and who is compelled to demand that rational ground for belief, without which, to the man of science, assent is merely an immoral pretence.

And it is this rational ground of belief which the writers of the Gospels, no less than Paul, and Eginhard, and Fox, so little dream of offering that they would regard the demand for it as a kind of blasphemy.

FOOTNOTES:

[33] My citations are made from Teulet’s Einhardi omnia quae extant opera, Paris, 1840-1843, which contains a biography of the author, a history of the text, with translations into French, and many valuable annotations.

[34] At present included in the Duchies of Hesse-Darmstadt and Baden.

[35] This took place in the year 826 A.D. The relics were brought from Rome and deposited in the Church of St. Medardus at Soissons.

[36] Now included in Western Switzerland.

[37] Probably, according to Teulet, the present Sandhoferfahrt, a little below the embouchure of the Neckar.

[38] The present Michilstadt, thirty miles N.E. of Heidelberg.

[39] In the Middle Ages one of the most favourite accusations against witches was that they committed just these enormities.

[40] It is pretty clear that Eginhard had his doubts about the deacon, whose pledges he qualifies as sponsiones incertae. But, to be sure, he wrote after events which fully justified scepticism.

[41] The words are scrinia sine clave, which seems to mean “having no key.” But the circumstances forbid the idea of breaking open.

[42] Eginhard speaks with lofty contempt of the “vana ac superstitiosa praesumptio” of the poor woman’s companions in trying to alleviate her sufferings with “herbs and frivolous incantations.” Vain enough, no doubt, but the “mulierculae” might have returned the epithet “superstitious” with interest.

[43] Of course there is nothing new in this argument: but it does not grow weaker by age. And the case of Eginhard is far more instructive than that of Augustine, because the former has so very frankly, though incidentally, revealed to us not only his own mental and moral habits, but those of the people about him.

[44] See 1 Cor. xii. 10-28; 2 Cor. vi. 12; Rom. xv. 19.

[45] A Journal or Historical Account of the Life, Travels, Sufferings, and Christian Experiences, etc., of George Fox, Ed. 1694, pp. 27, 28.